Wise Children: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Back in the present, Dora and Nora still go to screenings of their A Midsummer Night’s Dream movie, though these days, the movie theaters are mostly empty and infested with fleas. During one screening, Dora notices a young man fellating his partner. After the movie, the man recognizes Dora and Nora as the Chance sisters. The encounter is the best part of their day. The twins’ favorite tea shop has been closed for years, so they go to a dive bar instead. “I sometimes wonder why we go on living,” Dora sighs.

Dora prefers to think of the past, when they arrived in the U.S. to film A Midsummer Night’s Dream (or The Dream for short). To get to Los Angeles, the girls traveled to New York by boat, and Dora still remembers their picture on the front page of the New York Post. Melchior had insisted that the twins carry a jug of dirt from Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, all the way to the U.S., with the hopes that he could sprinkle some on the set of The Dream as a good luck ritual.

When Dora and Nora dock in New York, Perry greets them, bringing them to a lavish apartment on the 15th floor of a new high-rise. There are huge windows that look out over Central Park, and a white Persian cat (though Dora cannot help but wonder where the cat relieves itself). The apartment belongs to Perry’s girlfriend, Daisy Duck, a famous actress who goes by the stage name Delia Delaney. Originally from the Bronx, Daisy is blonde, lewd, tender, and already a huge film star at 25 years old. Daisy is also infamous for having had sex with almost every producer in Hollywood.

The second Dora and Nora meet Daisy, they love her. When Daisy gets a phone call she doesn’t want to answer, she throws the whole phone out the window. When she is hungry, she snaps and cocktail shrimp appear. Daisy absorbs the twins into her entourage, loaning them her dresses and plying them with endless alcohol. Soon, there are cameras everywhere, though Dora finds this taste of fame terrifying.

Before they all set off for L.A., Perry brings Dora—and only Dora—to an out-of-the-way construction site. When Dora asks Perry why he has taken her here, she realizes he is silently crying. From Perry’s tears, Dora understands that this must be the site of the old Plaza Hotel: the place where Ranulph killed Estella and himself, where Perry became an orphan.

Then, it is time to go to L.A., taking a three-day overnight train. Nora immediately falls in love with a passenger named Tony, an Italian boy. Every night, Nora sneaks from her first-class compartment to Tony’s third-class bunk, and they have raucous sex. Dora, too, has time to develop a crush, and she takes an interest in an older man on the train. The man always smells strongly of liquor, and he looks disheveled, his tie wrinkled and his glasses askew. Still, Dora finds herself drawn to this man (he is just over 40), especially because she notices that he seems to be close with Perry. One day, Perry introduces the man—whose real name is Ross O’Flaherty, but whom everyone calls “Irish”—to his niece, and a love affair begins.

Irish is a writer, celebrated in his youth but now struggling to produce new work. Dora would eventually become the subject of his last famous short story collection (The Hollywood Elegies), though Dora will always insist that Irish’s depiction of her as lecherous and deceitful is unfair.

At last, Dora and Nora arrive in L.A., where they quickly move into a Shakespeare-themed motel called The Forest of Arden. Irish often visits the motel, where he alternates between fawning over Dora and critiquing her as “vulgar.” Other times, Dora takes a cab to Irish’s nearly empty apartment. There, they have sex while Irish tries to “educate” Dora about grammar and Proust.

Sex with Irish is often tricky. Because of his drinking, Irish struggles to get an erection, though his love for Dora makes him want to swear off alcohol. Instead of liquor, Irish starts drinking tons of soda, which leads him to belch loudly during intimacy. Meanwhile, Nora has fallen deeply in love with Tony. She spends every spare moment helping him with his family’s pasta business, with a new domesticity that surprises Dora. Dora realizes that L.A. is changing both twins, albeit in different ways.

The movie set is a giant fake forest, scaled to make the human actors playing the fairies seem small. At the time, though Dora was impressed by the giant plastic flowers and the artificial wind machines, she found this stagecraft “too literal.” She missed the “person-to-person magic” of theater. But in her old age, she appreciates the permanence of film, since it allows her to store away her memories of the past “like jam, for winter.”

The Hollywood producer, whom everyone calls Genghis Khan, has spared no expense on this film. To try to make this money back, Genghis has insisted on casting a famous (and famously perverted) older actor as Puck. Dora only ever refers to this actor as Puck, and though she admires his singing voice, she loathes his temper and his constant sexual harassment.

In addition to Puck, the movie stars Melchior as Oberon and Daisy Duke as Titania. Now, Dora reveals that Daisy Duke lives with and is married to Genghis Khan, despite her love affair with Perry. Across town, Melchior and the Lady A. are renting a large house where they throw parties for the “English colony,” a group of other British expats living in Hollywood.

One day, as the expensive pre-production for The Dream drags on, Dora gets a call from her father, who wants to retrieve his jug of soil from Stratford-upon-Avon. Dora goes to bring Melchior the jug, only to find out that this is where Daisy’s cat has been urinating. So, Dora and Nora dump out the jug and refill it from the Forest of Arden’s lawn, trusting that Melchior will never be able to tell the difference.

At last, the first day of shooting has arrived. Dora and Nora are playing Titania’s fairy servants, Peaseblossom and Mustardseed. Saskia and Imogen have cameo parts. Irish is on set, too, having recently fallen off the wagon because Dora—who has started a sexual relationship with a German friend—missed a date. The only person Dora doesn’t recognize is a woman in sunglasses and a hat, though Dora realizes that this woman trails Daisy wherever she goes.

Melchior prepares to give a welcome speech to the cast and crew. But before he can do so, Genghis Khan steps in, livid that Melchior’s too-tight costume shows off the actor’s genitalia. Melchior refuses to change, and the two men squabble. To diffuse the tension, Perry does a magic trick, making a tropical bird seem to appear from Melchior’s crotch. Fortunately, the trick works, and Genghis bursts out laughing, forgetting his gripe.  

Now, Melchior reaches for the jug of soil, grandly thanking Dora and Nora for bringing the dirt over from England (though he calls the girls his “nieces” and gets their names wrong). Melchior then rhapsodizes about Shakespeare, quoting Puck’s famous speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Afterwards, Daisy has tears in her eye, and Dora realizes that Daisy is “smitten” with Melchior. Melchior is also staring at Daisy—and Dora sees, through the snug tights of her father’s costume, that Melchior has an erection.

Dora knows that Genghis came from humble beginnings in Brooklyn. But now, he parades around the studio like a dictator. He keeps a picture of Daisy on the desk in his office, a suggestion to other aspiring young actresses that if they pleasure him sexually, he will ensure their careers prosper. Still, Genghis has regrets about his life, often longing for the loyal wife he left back in Brooklyn. Now, Dora knows that this ex-wife is the woman who follows Daisy around set.

On their wedding night, Genghis had told Daisy he would give her anything she wanted. Daisy asked for a million dollars in cash, and Genghis begrudgingly obliged, ordering the money brought to their hotel at three in the morning. The next day, however, Genghis put the cash back in the bank, something Daisy never forgave. Now, Dora thinks, she is taking her revenge by deciding to have an affair with Melchior.

The production numbers get increasingly big and gaudy, as Genghis tries to guarantee that the movie is a hit. Dora wants Melchior to put a stop to this excess. But unfortunately, he is too busy having sex with Daisy all over the studio lot. Genghis has started to notice the affair, and he is devastated by it. Around this time, Dora leaves Irish for her German, even though Irish tries desperately to win her back. Dora is eager to return to Brixton, to leave this movie set with its endless, repetitive takes. But Nora wants to stay in Los Angeles and marry Tony. With a pang, Dora misses Grandma.

The shoot, which was originally supposed to last 10 weeks, has now lasted more than 20. Perry, bored, has escaped to Texas, where he buys a ranch. Dora, Nora, and many of the other actors have all gotten injured, since the forest set proves to be precariously built. Genghis has even propositioned Nora, inviting her to his office and asking her to bear his child. When Nora refuses, Genghis breaks down, saying he is desperate to take revenge on Melchior, and asking if Dora might be interested in a relationship even if Nora refuses. Nora thinks Dora, now single, should accept.

Then, one day, Daisy arrives at Dora and Nora’s hotel room with some news: she is pregnant with Melchior’s baby. Daisy decides to confront Melchior at his house, and she shows up with Dora and Nora in tow, interrupting a brunch the Lady A. is hosting. The Lady A. takes the news of Daisy’s pregnancy calmly, sending her daughters upstairs and welcoming Dora and Nora in. “And that’s another reason why we took the old trout in,” Dora reflects, because even in this moment, she treated the twins “as if we were family.”

Melchior and the Lady A. get divorced, and he and Daisy get engaged. Privately, Dora thinks that Melchior wants to marry Daisy because he sees her as his way into Hollywood stardom—though Dora is increasingly convinced that The Dream is destined to be a flop. Tony proposes to Nora, and Dora reluctantly agrees to marry Genghis Khan. The family announces all three engagements and the same time, and they plan on a triple wedding. Nora is even preparing to convert to Catholicism to please Tony’s family.

As the wedding approaches, Dora begins to feel like she has no agency of her own. She is only marrying Genghis because Nora wants her to, even though he repulses her. Dora has also started getting calls from Genghis’s Brooklyn wife, who just cries and then hangs up the phone.

The shoot winds down. Melchior has cast Gorgeous George, the British stand-up comedian, to play Bottom. But as soon as George arrives to set, everyone realizes his comic sensibility does not translate in the U.S. The final day of filming is thus a disaster, made even worse by the fact that it is immediately followed by the three couples’ joint engagement party. Tony’s family is doing the catering, pasta with marinara sauce.

When Genghis puts a giant diamond ring on Dora’s finger, she thinks, for a moment, that she wants to kill herself. But Dora refuses to see her life as a “tragedy,” as she has only ever wanted to be in comedies. Still, Dora can’t help but feel sad when she thinks of her blond tenor, or when she sees Genghis looking lovingly at Daisy, or when she notices Nora’s blissful expression as she twirls with Tony. Irish is there too, and Dora’s German lover. Puck comes out of nowhere to grab Dora’s behind, and Dora wants to throw up.

To catch her breath, Dora steps away, into the film’s forest set. Suddenly, the foliage parts to reveal Dora’s mirror image. At first, Dora thinks it is Nora, but then she smells Mitsouko and realizes it is Genghis’s Brooklyn wife, who has gotten extensive plastic surgery to look more like Dora, a ploy to get Genghis back. Through the Brooklyn wife is wearing a lot of makeup, Dora can still see bruises from the surgeries.

Dora hears the wedding march—somehow, the engagement party has turned into a surprise wedding. In a panic, Dora takes the ring off her own finger and shoves it onto the Brooklyn wife’s hand, noting that despite all her plastic surgery, the wife’s hands still show her true age. The Brooklyn wife smiles, and Dora runs to hide. When Dora sees George passed out, drunk, near a bush, she takes his Bottom costume and uses it a disguise. In many ways, Dora realizes, Hollywood itself was like a Shakespearean wood, where one could lose oneself or find oneself. 

Dora apologizes to her readers for losing focus, chastising herself for the fact that her story never moves “in a straight line.” Then, Dora’s narrative returns to the wedding party, where she sees that a short, middle-aged woman—Tony’s mother—has just arrived. While Tony’s mom begins to yell at him, the Brooklyn wife has put on a thick veil, so no one will figure out it is her and not the real Dora. A cowboy from Texas arrives to officiate. When the Brooklyn wife pushes back her veil, Dora starts crying. “I couldn’t help it,” she sighs, “I made a lovely bride.”

Just as the cowboy pronounces the three marriages official, Tony’s mother dumps a vat of marinara sauce onto Nora. Then there is chaos: Tony’s mom collapses, people mistake popped champagne for gunshots, and Melchior realizes that the cowboy from Texas is in fact Perry. Dora, exhausted, heads for the door. On the way out, Dora runs into Grandma. As soon as Grandma heard that the twins were going to get married, she explains, she pawned the Castrato grandfather clock and bought the first ticket to L.A. Dora is elated to have Grandma back at her side.

In the following days, Tony breaks it off with Nora, and Nora breaks his jaw with anger. On the honeymoon, Daisy gets her period, and she realizes she isn’t really pregnant. Shortly after, she and Melchior start fighting, then decide to get a divorce. And Nora and Dora head home with Grandma, bringing Daisy’s white Persian cat with them. Eventually, this cat becomes the forebear of the Chance sister’s present-day cats. Melchior never makes it in Hollywood, but to this day, Daisy can be seen on soap operas, still with her cleavage sticking out. “I was always fond of Daisy,” Dora thinks.